The Right Partner
by KorrohShipper
Summary: Endgame AU. Steve's journey of getting that dance with Peggy.


_**Avengers: Endgame**_** broke me.**

**But that final scene, built me back up. It's damn time Cap got that dance, and while it ain't Saturday at the Stork Club, 8 o'clock on the dot, it was something he deserved.**

**And while MCU officially began with Iron Man, it's _Captain America: The First Avenger_, whose heart and feel made it a favorite, my favorite along with its titular hero and his best girl, is its true introduction. Which is why, I felt, the time travel business isn't satisfying an ending. Make no mistake, I am part of the minority who loved the ending but there's something quite missing.**

**The send off wasn't quite there. Hence, this messily written fanfiction. I don't own anything. I'm dirt poor.**

**Sorry for the long author's note. Enjoy!**

* * *

Steve felt that his heart could hammer its way out of his chest at any moment.

The battlefield's noise was deafening, something that Steve knew all too well from his time. He remembered during the war, before the fateful mission that caused Bucky to fall off the train and be tortured and brainwashed, the Howling Commandos and the 107th were given new orders. It was in Northern France. They had to secure their hold in the region from an incoming onslaught of German forces to allow the next deployment to steadily secure and take back the country.

The fight went on into the night. There was a heavy rain of bullets and artillery shells managed to burrow deep into their camp and their make-shift trenches. There were times when he could still feel the rain of soil and rocks that pelted his skin from the impact of the mortar near him. Steve could remember how deafening it was, yelling until he felt his throat grow hoarse as troops followed his command. He lead the ground offensive against the SS soldiers who tried to pin them down before their tanks could pave its way to their station.

It was a successful mission, but when the morning came, the sunlight revealed it all. Steve almost choked at the sight of over a hundred casualties of war on his side. The metallic scent of the blood that pooled around the area kicked and churned at his stomach, making him gag and feel like hurling whenever a body was brought to the count. Steve could never forget the amount of dog tags hastily removed from the uncleaned corpses of the men he served with. It had been the most devastating battle he had seen and he had lead them to their deaths.

Steve knew death. He had encountered death numerous times. But that battle, that stand to hold out and wait for reinforcements, that had been the most scarring memory of the war.

He lead them to their deaths. Good men, family men.

Suddenly, there was a loud explosion almost ten feet away from him. Steve was jarred back to reality when Carol Danvers, Captain Marvel, had swooped in and zoomed over his head to get a better angle to stop Thanos from reaching the gauntlet which had been passed to the Spiderman.

Steve felt his throat constrict at the sight that was far too familiar to him. He remembered the piles of bodies and the deafening sound of war that hung over their necks like blades ready to drop at a moment's notice. It was only then, when he scanned the battlefield to see where he could offer his assistance, that he saw the gauntlet was vaulted high up into the air. Steve's stomach dropped when he saw Tony and Thanos reaching for the glove.

Steve tried to recall Tony before the whole time heist when it occurred to him that the re-hash of a war they've lost isn't something Stark had in mind. At first, Steve thought of how different he was from Howard. His old friend would jump at the chance to try and help take down Thanos the minute they've formulated a plan to take the six stones to save those who had vanished. But then 1970 Camp Lehigh happened, Steve didn't have to ask Tony, but he knew that Howard was there.

Steve heard that Howard was willing to do everything for Tony. It was at that moment when Steve realized that, in turn, Tony was willing to do everything for Morgan, that as a father, he was willing to do anything so that she'd live in a world where everyone is safe and if everything and anything meant his life, Tony would give it unconditionally because he loved his daughter.

Steve felt a pang of guilt in his chest. Tony had quit, he had retired to enjoy a quiet and peaceful life with Pepper and Morgan. He hated him for that but deep inside, Steve wanted the same thing. He had always dreamed, hoped for that after the war, he'd work up the guts to ask Peggy for something a bit more than dance. He wanted to marry her, start a family, hang up the shield and star-spangled suit for a nice coat and tie. He wanted the white picket fence dream as much as Tony did.

It was no lie. The man who wanted the marriage, the kids, the growing old to reach a ripe old age, and the picket fence, that man took a dive in the arctic with Steve and when he woke up seventy years later, that man had already died.

Steve realized that he and Tony were similar, in a way, with only one contrast that made all the difference. The only and biggest difference was that for him, it was just that. A dream, a hope that died the moment he realized he couldn't go back to his time. An idea that was sealed shut in a coffin when he learned that the woman he wanted all that with had lived that dream with someone else. A life that was buried along with Peggy.

But it was so different for Tony. For him, it was a reality, a so much more vulnerable, delicate and precious reality for Tony. While Steve had already lost his the moment he crashed Schmidt's plane into the arctic ocean, Tony could very well—_in a blink of an eye_—lose his life for a war there's no guarantee of winning.

It was at that moment that Steve realized that he could lead Tony to his death. A good man, a family man, his friend's only son and most precious creation. Steve huffed with a strong cough before setting his eyes on the gauntlet that remained airborne. His teeth gritted and his eyes narrowed at the sight. He lead Tony into the battle and away from his family, he'd be damned to hell if he didn't lead him out, too.

Determined to see his plan through, Steve felt the crunch of gravel, earth, and ruins of HQ under his feet as he picked up the pace and ran as fast as he could. Steve felt the familiar tug in his stomach and willed the feeling of lightning as it coursed through his veins. The sound of thunder crackled like mad laughter in the air as electricity danced upon his fingertips. A fast, whizzing sound made itself known as Mjolnir made a beeline towards him. With a magnetic force, the mythic hammer rested within his palm and with lightning trailing behind his back.

Steve saw a huge pillar, crumbled on the ground and used it to launch himself into the air. He yelled on the top of his lungs, his hand firmly allowing gravity and momentum to swing the hammer into a great height before slamming it to the ground with a mighty thud.

A surge of power of energy erupted from Mjolnir. From the distance, Thor crowed with an amused and satisfied laughter, something about being worthy. Steve honestly couldn't care at the moment as a dust cloud ravaged the field, giving him enough time to snatch the stones mid air and into his grasps.

Both his allies and Thanos' armies fought to stay on the ground, strong winds pushing them back. Steve eyes the gauntlet and, for a second, fear crept into his heart but a moral compass, a sense of righteousness stopped him from tossing the glove to Danvers or Okoye. A sense of ringing duty that gave a familiar note.

**_"I'm gonna need a rain check on that dance."_**

Around him, the dust slowly settled down and Steve could already make Thanos' form in the distance. The smug sneer on his face told him one thing—he did not know. "I am inevitable." Thanos raised his fist high up into the air and his fingers made a resounding snap, a sound that still brought him to his knees but for an entirely different reason.

The snap, in his mind, felt eerily familiar to the sound of metal scraping against the hardened surface of the ice caps, the sound of hundreds of glass window panes shattering in front of him. It all felt eerily familiar and the reason slowly made itself clear to Steve as his heart hammered and raced inside his chest, waiting to burst out in the most excruciating manner.

Steve felt his throat hitch and his lips quiver. It's not fair that he should feel that way again. Not after feeling the same way in March 3, 1945.

Only nothing happened. Thanos looked with a disgruntled and enraged glare that the gauntlet was no longer within his grasps. "And I," Steve heard a confident, almost bordering on arrogant, voice. A reluctant smile tugged on his lips. "Am Iron Man!" Tony was Howards' son. There's was no doubting that. Steve only felt a tinge of sadness knowing that his old friend would never get to realize that he was wrong. Captain America wasn't his best creation—Anthony Edward was.

Only nothing happened again. The white noise of the battle drowned out everything and the only sound he could hear is his own blood pumping inside his ears. His chest surged with panic and fear, but instinctively, his left hand dropped Mjolnir to the ground with a resounding thud and reached frantically for a pocket. Like last time, his fingers searched and fished until they collided with something circular and metal. A smooth engraving allowed his finger to grip in the compass and with his shaking hand, Steve managed to get it to open.

The minute he saw her face, he sucked in a sharp breath of air. He hoped, like last time, Peggy would give him the strength to do the right thing. A small part whispered in his head and begged for her voice to guide him. Maybe even set up a date that would never happen.

Slowly, the world unmuted and soon, there was a loud battle cry. Thanos looked at him with terrible disdain and commanded his troops in his direction as his meaty fist was raised in the air, a nasty looking finger pointed straight at him. "Get the gauntlet!" Steve's stomach churned uncomfortably and his hands felt clammy and sweaty.

A faint voice rang in his head, a soft twinkling reminder that reminded him of a similar situation.

**_"Alright, a week, next Saturday, at the Stork Club." _**

Tony, somehow, had managed to escape the onslaught of the army rushing to him and escaped to the sky. "Come on, Cap!" Tony yelled, dodging and trying to out maneuver the missiles and projectiles from ships. "Give me the glove!"

But Steve paid them both no mind. He was still lost, in his own mind, with a memory of Peggy. The wind from the Mjolnir still kept blowing, and it didn't escape him how it was so similar to when he had cranked the controls and fixed them down. The cold wind of the arctic breeze blew at his face, too.

"God damn it, Rogers, give me the glove!" Stark yelled as he was forcefully left to deal with a beam of energy that almost sliced through him.

Finally catching his breath, Steve nodded. "You got it."

**_"You got it." _**

But instead if trying to pawn it off, Steve allowed the shield to fall off his right arm to toss it aside and make room for the gauntlet, allowing it to adjust to his arm. Thanos roared in anger, bellowing in loud fury to get him. Loud thumps in the ground vibrated and the army ran faster towards him in a death race.

Thanos' troops continued to ravage through the battlefield like an evil flood, not unlike the water that came rushing inside the cockpit of the bomber when he had crashed the plane.

"Rogers—I swear to. . .give me that gauntlet!" Tony yelled again, this time actually flying to his direction.

The first thing that Steve noticed about the gauntlet was that how light it was. For a tool that could make people vanish and bring them back, or raze the universe into an eternal hell, it was surprisingly light. He had expected it to grow heavy on his wrist, and he supposed that it did, just not in the way he expected it to. Much like Peggy's coffin, when he served as a pallbearer, it felt surprisingly light but the weight it had out upon his shoulders, the crushing amount of fear and guilt and confusion on his chest left him breathless.

Tears flooded his vision. He wanted to give Tony the gauntlet, but he kept it on his hand. He kept that weight on him.

Kind of like Peggy's words, too. As they talked about dancing in each other's arms, how he's supposed to be late. It left a crushing guilt that ate away inside his soul.

**_"Eight o'clock on the dot. Don't you dare be late. Understood?" _**

Steve's eyes stung with tears as they rolled down his cheeks. His throat felt hoarse and the horde came nearer and nearer. His breathing became quicker, much more shallow and his lips quivered. But instead, he closed his eyes. He tried to remember 1970, Camp Lehigh. The S.H.I.E.L.D. base at the time.

He never wanted to go inside the office. At first, he cursed his luck, that of all the offices he could have chosen to hide, it was Peggy's. When she showed up, just a few meters away from him, just glass dividing them that time, not death, dementia or seventy years, or being cryogenically asleep. Steve felt an urge to burst through the door that divided them. He wanted to take her inside his arms, lift her off the ground, and sink into her embrace. He wanted to remember what her perfume smelled like, how the rose scented shampoo of hers made him smile whenever she was near. He wanted her to know that he was okay, that he was alive.

That she didn't need to mourn. Not ever.

And if she had someone else in her life, that's okay. All he wanted to do was take her on that dance, even if it's only that dance.

Even if there's no music. Even if it's just _one_ dance.

_Because it's alright_, Steve thought to himself as the stones glowed menacingly at his face and taunted him, _because she's the love of his life, even if he's not the love of hers_.

But instead he made due with resting his hand on the door knob. He hid his face behind the shadow and slowly listened to her voice. Steve almost broke when he saw her smile and laugh. Even though she was around in her 50's, she didn't look like a day over thirty. The fine lines of stress and age were there, but it was still his Peggy, the most beautiful and intelligent, tenacious and tough and independent and vivacious Peggy who he fell in love with the minute she had given Hodge a proper introduction to her fist.

At first, he thought it was the universe mocking him, dangling the woman he loved in front of him like a sick joke. Dangling a future he could have had, the life he never had. He had the opportunity to be selfish, the opportunity to burst through those doors and stay in the past and be with her the best way he can, in the little time he can, but the world needed its saving. Steve allowed himself a chest-wracking sob when Peggy trailed out the door. It was adding insult to injury.

But with the events happening, he figured out that maybe it was a way to get even. One last look, one last glance at Peggy. One last time to hear voice, her laughter. A chance to see her be happy, to know that she was okay in the years without him.

To see her, for the first time in nine years, one last time before he saves the world. Kind of like that one last conversation over the comms on the Valkyrie.

His only true regret was that he never got that dance.

**_"You know, I still don't know how to dance." _**

Steve opened his eyes and raised his right hand. His heart still thumping loudly. The rushing sound of a thousand footsteps grew louder and louder. Steve brought the compass—_Peggy's picture_—to his lips. He took a shaky breath of air and allowed his thumb to graze across his middle and index finger. A loud snap was made.

Soon, everything fell silent.

The hordes of Thanos' army stopped running. A loud ringing sound hummed in his ear, his eyes remained closed.

Steve hated it. He wanted to hear music. He never did have that dance. He never learned. He still wanted to learn.

**_"I'll show you how. Just be there." _**

Soon, there was an excruciating pain that shot through his arm. It ate away at his flesh and Steve felt, for the second time, that the serum became a curse more than a blessing.

His regenerative healing helped. Steve could see his flesh trying so hard to grow back, but it was far too slow. The logistics spoke out, his military side coming through. He would die, he'd last a few more minutes, but he'd die nonetheless. The serum all but prolonged the pain, but it wouldn't be enough to save him. It just kept him clinging to life longer so he could feel the pain.

"That was a whole new level of stupid, punk."

Steve found it in him to give a small smile. "After you've taken all the stupid with you? I doubt it, jerk."

Bucky tried to lift him, but he groaned in pain. "Reminds you of the old days? When I'd find you curled up behind a dumpster and you'd whine like a baby when I help you up?" Steve was thankful that, after Bucky's first attempt to lift him up, his friend had stopped trying. "Why didn't you just get rid of that stupid gauntlet?"

His chest reverberated with a soft chuckle. Steve breathed heavily and allowed his chest to heave slowly as he felt his raspy voice scratch through the atmosphere around him. "And miss a good beating?" Bucky gave him a small smile and shook his head at him. "I can do this all day."

Steve tried his best to sit up. But a flash of pain erupted from his right arm the second he tried to push himself up. His vision danced with black dots and his ears clouded with a deafening ring. When he came to, familiar faces circled around him and smaller figures—_the others_—appeared in the distance running in his direction.

"_Oh_, Cap, that doesn't look good." Bruce grimaced with a pained sigh.

Steve chuckled softly under his breath and lifted his left hand. The glass had a small crack to it, but the picture wasn't harmed or scratched in any way. Steve felt relieved.

"On your left."

Steve craned his neck to see Sam with his shield.

"You dropped this."

Steve coughed. "That old thing?" Sam tried to hold it out but he shook his head. "Thought you always had an eye for it." Sam looked uncomfortable with the shield, like he felt it belonged to someone else. "Why don't you keep it for a while?" he tried to look at Sam, give him a nod of encouragement, but his eyes were fixed on something else.

Steve just looked at the compass and his eyes watered at Peggy's picture. His breathing labored and his chest tightened painfully.

"Nat wouldn't be too impressed, Steve." Wanda joined the circle. "In fact, I think she'd knock some sense in to you. Literally, with a very, _very_ hard object with the intent to make a dent."

He wasn't surprised. "It's Nat. She'd do whatever she liked." He answered simply, with a great deal of weariness and exhaustion laced in his voice. But Wanda laughed, a sad smile rested on her lips.

Then, the sound of rocket boosters got louder until a steady beam of heat radiated from a side. Steve's blurry vision could make out the faint colors of red and yellow. Finally, Tony showed up. Panting, his face was red and puffy, like he had taken a long swim across the ocean to get to him. "Get up on your ass, Captain."

"_America's ass_," he drawled out, his eyelids feeling heavy, "Stark." He finished lamely with each breath taking longer and longer to replenish.

"Listen, Cap, I don't have time to play with your games but—"

Steve raised a finger to quiet Tony down. Still, he looked down at his chest and stared at the picture. "Tony," he turned to his friend's side and looked at him carefully. "You look like Howard." Steve breathed out. "_His greatest creation. . ._" it almost felt like a whisper when the words left his lips.

Tony shook his head. "Pepper!" Steve stared at the photograph longingly with glassy eyes, his vision blurred as a tear ran through his face. "I need help with the Captain here!" Tony looked expectantly at the people around them and glared at them with a burning passion. "Well, don't just stand there. Give me a hand—"

On cue, to perfectly cut off Tony mid-ramble, Pepper, clad in a suit, rocketed her way down to the ground and gasped when she saw Steve. "Tony," her voice held a warning edge. Her eyes red-rimmed and her face blotchy with tear stains.

"Help me carry him. Lang's got that poor excuse of a car somewhere, or we can—"

"Tony!"

Steve drowned out the noise and focused, instead, on his breathing. His eyes remained fixed on his compass, the arrow still pointing to true north.

"Peg. . ." he breathed out in relief. Steve reached out for the compass and pressed one, last lingering kiss on the picture. "I think I'll go dancing for a while. Something slow."

**"_We'll have the band play somethin' slow. I'd hate to step on your toes_."**

Steve allowed his eyes to flutter shut. He relished in the comfort it brought him. The entire place seemed to turn quiet, too. Like he was in a peaceful clearing, with no one else.

"Steve?" he heard Bucky call for him. It sounded distant. Like it was from a far away place. Like Bucky was shouting his name from afar.

_"**Steve?" **_

"Punk!"

**_"Steve?" _**

"Rogers!"

**_"Steve. . ."_**

* * *

When Steve opened his eyes, he was standing outside an office.

He glanced around his surroundings and he frowned when there was a small picture frame that sat on the desk. It held a photograph from a long time ago. Before the serum, before the crash, before the accord, before those robots, before Thanos.

Steve's eyes widened and immediately darted towards his right arm. He gave a strangled sound when his arm seemed good as new. Only, he wasn't wearing his star spangled suit, or the disguise he wore when he went back to 1970 for the Tessaract, either.

He was wearing a white SSR shirt and khaki pants. The very same he wore the day he woke up from his sleep.

Steve frantically pat his waist and his pockets for the watch. He grimaced when there was nothing—

There was a small, almost silent, door chime. The small tinkering of bells sounded and the door produced two people. The first one who came through, for all intents and purpose, Steve didn't really know and frankly didn't care about. His eyes were fixed in the woman who followed, whose voice was like an oasis to a parched man in a dry desert.

Steve held his breath in. He was in 1970 again, and Peggy was there, and the same door stood between them again. Steve had his hand grip the door knob. He was desperate not to get caught, to finish the mission with Tony—

A flash of memory surged in his mind. _A massive and devastating fight with Thanos_. Steve's head hurt, the memory haunting and itching and gnawing at his brain yet it remained to be so blurry, so unclear.

"Alright, I'll look over the files after lunch, Mary. Thank you." Peggy's voice filtered through the doors.

The impeccable ring to her English accent caught Steve's attention and he found himself staring at her. Peggy was grabbing her coat and purse.

Steve felt a sudden rush of panic in his chest. With all his might and speed, before Peggy walked out the door, Steve pulled open divided office. Ready to call out her name, the minute he pulled the door towards him and run after her, a shining bright light blinded him.

* * *

A muted sound of laughter, cheering, clapping, drinking, and eating became much louder and prominent. When Steve came to, he was sitting at the edge of a bar with a cup of whiskey in his hands. He raised his brow, knowing well to himself that he couldn't get drunk. Allowing himself to turn around, Steve craned his head to his sides and his eyebrows furrowed together in deep confusion. He was at the Stork Club.

Steve got out of the chair and on his feet when he realized that with every step he took, a solid clank of wood clinked with the floor. Steve managed to spot a mirror across him and found himself dressed in the old standard issue formal military dress uniform. It had been perfectly pressed and tailored. The captain's bars proudly stood out in his lapel. He felt younger, too. The dark brown that stemmed at the bottom of his hair had disappeared into golden blonde. His limbs felt much more elastic, like he hadn't been put into water for seventy years. The fine lines that were toned by sleepless nights, stress, loss, and war had disappeared. He felt like he was back—back in 1945.

"Sir?" a voice called out after him.

Steve turned around and saw the bartender. He looked oddly familiar. Like he was from the 107th from France. "Me?" he asked, unsure, and he sheepishly looked around if anyone else's attention was caught.

"You left your," the bartender lifted a small circular metal disk, "uh, locket, sir." The bartender said without certainty. With a solid toss, Steve fixed his eyes on the compass and caught it with one hand. When he flicked it open. He smiled, Peggy's picture was still undamaged. But the arrow kept pointing at his back. The compass had stopped working.

He frowned. _Must have been damaged with the flick_, he thought to himself.

_Flick. War. Thanos._

Steve's eyes widened and felt his hands go cold. He found it increasingly difficult to breathe and he stared blankly across the bar. The people around him looked familiar because he had fought with them during that German offensive. They were the soldiers and nurses who had died during that night. With heavy realization, Steve knew the fight with Thanos was over. The barkeep looked familiar, like he was one of his men who died in France. He felt like frigid cold water had been dumped over his head when he realized that he flicked the gauntlet. His arm held no trace of damage from the radiation of the stones. Steve gaped blankly at the compass, refusing to point north when a voice sounded from behind him.

"Steve, darling, you're late."

He gaped at her. "Peggy?" she looked beautiful. She wore that red dress, the same dress when she came inside the pub. Steve gave a choked smile but it didn't quite reach his eyes. She still looked like the woman he had kissed in the back of Schmidt's car. He grimaced internally and his heart squeezed painfully—their first and last kiss.

Steve glanced at the compass—it pointed at Peggy.

"Who else would I be, soldier?"

"You're... I'm... are we—" _dead_?

Peggy cut him off with a forward kiss in the mouth. "Going dancing?" she finished for him when she pulled away. "Why, yes we are, darling. You've kept me waiting, after all, it's the least you could do, Steve. Didn't I tell you the time? _8 o'clock on the dot. Don't you dare be late. Understood?_" she echoed the words from a long time ago, but the pain etched in her voice, the tears and the painful and quiet sobs laced into her voice, the voice that had filtered down from the comms of Schmidt's plane, was gone now. It was replaced with a knowing tone and a growing smirk that was unmistakably and characteristically Peggy.

"With me?" he breathed out, floundered, unable to come up with the right words, fearing that anything he'd say would end up plain and redundant.

"Well, naturally, my darling. After all, how can I dance without my partner?"

Steve's eyes watered as she lead him into the middle of the dance floor. "Peg?"

She pulled him into another kiss. The second time was far more gentle, more softer, and it lingered on his lips before she pulled away. Peggy looked at him, straight in the eye. "My right partner." She sighed contently and rested her head on his chest. She lead the dance as her hips swayed gently with the music. She was standing too close to him, the distance between too little for America's conservative 1940's, but he couldn't care less.

She looked beautiful in his arms.

"Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?" he asked with a wry smile on his lips as Peggy gave him a knowing glance and a grin that made his heart melt inside his chest. He felt like exploding, all the emotions that captured his heart she played into one simple kiss on his lips.

"Once or twice. But it doesn't matter, darling." She began as he felt her smile into his chest. "What matters is that you're here, Steve. You're home. We can finally have that dance." Peggy allowed the music to reign over them and stop the exchange of their words. But it didn't last long. She looked up at him, her eyes boring into his. "I love you, Steve Rogers."

Steve, finally relaxed and relieved—_to be in her arms, finally_—planted a small kiss on her hair and held her close, finally enjoying that dance. Finally home, Steve tightened his embrace and continued to dance to the music with his Peggy. His right partner.

His shoulders finally loosened up, and Steve released a breath of air he didn't know he was holding in. He allowed himself to be lost in the moment and in her embrace. He breathed in that scent and swayed with the music and the woman he loves. "I love you, too, Peggy."


End file.
